Edward Snowden interview blanked by media

On Sunday 26 January, whistle-blower Edward Snowden appeared on German television network ARD to give an interview that has been almost universally ignored by the press outside Germany (where it has received a great deal of attention), and which has been removed from YouTube, Vimeo, and just about everywhere else.

A softly spoken Mr Snowdon appeared relaxed but determined, despite the interview starting with Snowden saying that there was ‘always a significant threat’, and about how he had read a Buzzfeed article in which an anonymous Pentagon official said when interviewed that ‘I would love to put a bullet in his head.’

Unfortunately our WordPress website software doesn’t allow us embed this video, so clicking on the picture above should take you a web page with the video on it. Chillingly, during the course of writing this article liveleak.com became unavailable…

In the interview Snowden talks about how his ‘breaking point’ was ‘seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress’ when denying the existence of a domestic spying program when he testified before Congress in March of last year.

With regards to accusations that he is a traitor, Snowden responded,

‘If I am traitor, who did I betray? I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety, I’ll never be fully safe until these systems have changed.’

The compressive blacklisting this video has seen is deeply worrying, and while writing this article liveleak.com (who have been hosting the video) became unavailable. If it remains unavailable, a complete transcript of the interview can be found here…

Update: 07 February 2014: The liveleak.com and the video are back online.